WASHINGTON WATCH: PROMISE KEEPERS `STAND IN THE GAP'

Clear was the call to action: Return home dedicated to being better people, be active in the church, eradicate racism everywhere, and carry God's word to all corners of the world.

Somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million men turned out Saturday in our nation's capital to acknowledge their need to commit themselves to being better husbands and fathers -- to being better men -- by reaffirming the power of God. We found the event inspirational and worthy of praise. As seen on C-SPAN, men and some women of all colors, shapes and sizes, joined together to sing and pray. They hugged and cried. They repented sins and past failures. They even cleaned up the grounds afterward. Clear in the message of the gathering was the need for racial harmony and the recognition of the beauty of diversity under God's laws. Clear was the call to action: Return home dedicated to being better people, be active in the church, eradicate racism everywhere, and carry God's word to all corners of the world.

Before the actual event, we were bemused by much of the national media's coverage of Promise Keepers. So-called "balanced reporting" seemed to demand that for every positive story on the Christian organization, national media were obligated to report a "negative perspective." And thus, groups like the National Organization for Women were given a podium to decry Promise Keepers as "misogynistic" and "oppressive." Some civil rights organizations called Promise Keepers merely a "white, suburban club."

But something rather miraculous happened on Saturday. Instead of merely reporting other people's perspectives about Promise Keeper rallies, where too few reporters apparently dare to roam, the media was confronted up close with real men and real voices. And, the clearly positive message about commitment to being better husbands, fathers, people seemed to move even the jaded national media.

In the USA Today on Monday, William Mattox, who serves on the paper's board of contributors, took exception with the National Organization for Women's condemnation of the event: "To be sure, Promise Keepers does call upon men to lead their families, but the leadership model it offers is not that of a domineering 'lord of the manor.' It is, instead, a model of 'servant leadership' patterned after the foot-washer from Galilee who said he came 'not to be served, but to serve.'" (Mark 10:45)

CBS News analyst Laura Ingraham wrote, "Men haven't joined the Promise Keepers out of some secret desire to learn how to subjugate their wives or girlfriends. They want to be better husbands and fathers."

In the New York Times, a political analysis pointed out how Promise Keepers astounded critics by its true-to-its-word focus on the spiritual and moral and not the political.

The Times quoted Vito Mazzaro, 36, a United Parcels Service driver from North Branch, Mich. who attended the event with his 11-year old son, explaining, "We can't change people through politics. Our job is to have a lifestyle of integrity."

The title of the Promise Keepers' assembly in our nation's capitol was "Stand in the Gap," a reference to an apocalyptic passage in the biblical book Ezekiel (22:30) in which God declared, "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none."

On Saturday in our nation's capital, hundreds of thousands of men accepted God's challenge. Hundreds of thousands of other men elsewhere in our country no doubt heard the call. Organizers have set ambitious goals to keep the movement moving forward, including holding rallies in each state capitol in the year 2000. It is a movement worth everyone's reflection. It is a movement worth support. It is a movement worth our prayers.

Jon Rust is the publisher of the Dyersburg, Tenn., News, where this commentary was published as an editorial.